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The Rules of Pacers Digest

Hello everyone,

Whether your are a long standing forum member or whether you have just registered today, it's a good idea to read and review the rules below so that you have a very good idea of what to expect when you come to Pacers Digest.

A quick note to new members: Your posts will not immediately show up when you make them. An administrator has to approve at least your first post before the forum software will later upgrade your account to the status of a fully-registered member. This usually happens within a couple of hours or so after your post(s) is/are approved, so you may need to be a little patient at first.

Why do we do this? So that it's more difficult for spammers (be they human or robot) to post, and so users who are banned cannot immediately re-register and start dousing people with verbal flames.

Below are the rules of Pacers Digest. After you have read them, you will have a very good sense of where we are coming from, what we expect, what we don't want to see, and how we react to things.

Rule #1

Pacers Digest is intended to be a place to discuss basketball without having to deal with the kinds of behaviors or attitudes that distract people from sticking with the discussion of the topics at hand. These unwanted distractions can come in many forms, and admittedly it can sometimes be tricky to pin down each and every kind that can rear its ugly head, but we feel that the following examples and explanations cover at least a good portion of that ground and should at least give people a pretty good idea of the kinds of things we actively discourage:

"Anyone who __________ is a liar / a fool / an idiot / a blind homer / has their head buried in the sand / a blind hater / doesn't know basketball / doesn't watch the games"

"People with intelligence will agree with me when I say that __________"

"Only stupid people think / believe / do ___________"

"I can't wait to hear something from PosterX when he/she sees that **insert a given incident or current event that will have probably upset or disappointed PosterX here**"

"He/she is just delusional"

"This thread is stupid / worthless / embarrassing"

"I'm going to take a moment to point and / laugh at PosterX / GroupOfPeopleY who thought / believed *insert though/belief here*"

"Remember when PosterX said OldCommentY that no longer looks good? "

In general, if a comment goes from purely on topic to something 'ad hominem' (personal jabs, personal shots, attacks, flames, however you want to call it, towards a person, or a group of people, or a given city/state/country of people), those are most likely going to be found intolerable.

We also dissuade passive aggressive behavior. This can be various things, but common examples include statements that are basically meant to imply someone is either stupid or otherwise incapable of holding a rational conversation. This can include (but is not limited to) laughing at someone's conclusions rather than offering an honest rebuttal, asking people what game they were watching, or another common problem is Poster X will say "that player isn't that bad" and then Poster Y will say something akin to "LOL you think that player is good". We're not going to tolerate those kinds of comments out of respect for the community at large and for the sake of trying to just have an honest conversation.

Now, does the above cover absolutely every single kind of distraction that is unwanted? Probably not, but you should by now have a good idea of the general types of things we will be discouraging. The above examples are meant to give you a good feel for / idea of what we're looking for. If something new or different than the above happens to come along and results in the same problem (that being, any other attitude or behavior that ultimately distracts from actually just discussing the topic at hand, or that is otherwise disrespectful to other posters), we can and we will take action to curb this as well, so please don't take this to mean that if you managed to technically avoid saying something exactly like one of the above examples that you are then somehow off the hook.

That all having been said, our goal is to do so in a generally kind and respectful way, and that doesn't mean the moment we see something we don't like that somebody is going to be suspended or banned, either. It just means that at the very least we will probably say something about it, quite possibly snipping out the distracting parts of the post in question while leaving alone the parts that are actually just discussing the topics, and in the event of a repeating or excessive problem, then we will start issuing infractions to try to further discourage further repeat problems, and if it just never seems to improve, then finally suspensions or bans will come into play. We would prefer it never went that far, and most of the time for most of our posters, it won't ever have to.

A slip up every once and a while is pretty normal, but, again, when it becomes repetitive or excessive, something will be done. Something occasional is probably going to be let go (within reason), but when it starts to become habitual or otherwise a pattern, odds are very good that we will step in.

There's always a small minority that like to push people's buttons and/or test their own boundaries with regards to the administrators, and in the case of someone acting like that, please be aware that this is not a court of law, but a private website run by people who are simply trying to do the right thing as they see it. If we feel that you are a special case that needs to be dealt with in an exceptional way because your behavior isn't explicitly mirroring one of our above examples of what we generally discourage, we can and we will take atypical action to prevent this from continuing if you are not cooperative with us.

Also please be aware that you will not be given a pass simply by claiming that you were 'only joking,' because quite honestly, when someone really is just joking, for one thing most people tend to pick up on the joke, including the person or group that is the target of the joke, and for another thing, in the event where an honest joke gets taken seriously and it upsets or angers someone, the person who is truly 'only joking' will quite commonly go out of his / her way to apologize and will try to mend fences. People who are dishonest about their statements being 'jokes' do not do so, and in turn that becomes a clear sign of what is really going on. It's nothing new.

In any case, quite frankly, the overall quality and health of the entire forum's community is more important than any one troublesome user will ever be, regardless of exactly how a problem is exhibiting itself, and if it comes down to us having to make a choice between you versus the greater health and happiness of the entire community, the community of this forum will win every time.

Lastly, there are also some posters, who are generally great contributors and do not otherwise cause any problems, who sometimes feel it's their place to provoke or to otherwise 'mess with' that small minority of people described in the last paragraph, and while we possibly might understand why you might feel you WANT to do something like that, the truth is we can't actually tolerate that kind of behavior from you any more than we can tolerate the behavior from them. So if we feel that you are trying to provoke those other posters into doing or saying something that will get themselves into trouble, then we will start to view you as a problem as well, because of the same reason as before: The overall health of the forum comes first, and trying to stir the pot with someone like that doesn't help, it just makes it worse. Some will simply disagree with this philosophy, but if so, then so be it because ultimately we have to do what we think is best so long as it's up to us.

If you see a problem that we haven't addressed, the best and most appropriate course for a forum member to take here is to look over to the left of the post in question. See underneath that poster's name, avatar, and other info, down where there's a little triangle with an exclamation point (!) in it? Click that. That allows you to report the post to the admins so we can definitely notice it and give it a look to see what we feel we should do about it. Beyond that, obviously it's human nature sometimes to want to speak up to the poster in question who has bothered you, but we would ask that you try to refrain from doing so because quite often what happens is two or more posters all start going back and forth about the original offending post, and suddenly the entire thread is off topic or otherwise derailed. So while the urge to police it yourself is understandable, it's best to just report it to us and let us handle it. Thank you!

All of the above is going to be subject to a case by case basis, but generally and broadly speaking, this should give everyone a pretty good idea of how things will typically / most often be handled.

Rule #2

If the actions of an administrator inspire you to make a comment, criticism, or express a concern about it, there is a wrong place and a couple of right places to do so.

The wrong place is to do so in the original thread in which the administrator took action. For example, if a post gets an infraction, or a post gets deleted, or a comment within a larger post gets clipped out, in a thread discussing Paul George, the wrong thing to do is to distract from the discussion of Paul George by adding your off topic thoughts on what the administrator did.

The right places to do so are:

A) Start a thread about the specific incident you want to talk about on the Feedback board. This way you are able to express yourself in an area that doesn't throw another thread off topic, and this way others can add their two cents as well if they wish, and additionally if there's something that needs to be said by the administrators, that is where they will respond to it.

B) Send a private message to the administrators, and they can respond to you that way.

If this is done the wrong way, those comments will be deleted, and if it's a repeating problem then it may also receive an infraction as well.

Rule #3

If a poster is bothering you, and an administrator has not or will not deal with that poster to the extent that you would prefer, you have a powerful tool at your disposal, one that has recently been upgraded and is now better than ever: The ability to ignore a user.

When you ignore a user, you will unfortunately still see some hints of their existence (nothing we can do about that), however, it does the following key things:

A) Any post they make will be completely invisible as you scroll through a thread.

B) The new addition to this feature: If someone QUOTES a user you are ignoring, you do not have to read who it was, or what that poster said, unless you go out of your way to click on a link to find out who it is and what they said.

To utilize this feature, from any page on Pacers Digest, scroll to the top of the page, look to the top right where it says 'Settings' and click that. From the settings page, look to the left side of the page where it says 'My Settings', and look down from there until you see 'Edit Ignore List' and click that. From here, it will say 'Add a Member to Your List...' Beneath that, click in the text box to the right of 'User Name', type in or copy & paste the username of the poster you are ignoring, and once their name is in the box, look over to the far right and click the 'Okay' button. All done!

Rule #4

Regarding infractions, currently they carry a value of one point each, and that point will expire in 31 days. If at any point a poster is carrying three points at the same time, that poster will be suspended until the oldest of the three points expires.

Rule #5

When you share or paste content or articles from another website, you must include the URL/link back to where you found it, who wrote it, and what website it's from. Said content will be removed if this doesn't happen.

An example:

If I copy and paste an article from the Indianapolis Star website, I would post something like this:

We cannot tolerate illegal videos on Pacers Digest. This means do not share any links to them, do not mention any websites that host them or link to them, do not describe how to find them in any way, and do not ask about them. Posts doing anything of the sort will be removed, the offenders will be contacted privately, and if the problem becomes habitual, you will be suspended, and if it still persists, you will probably be banned.

The legal means of watching or listening to NBA games are NBA League Pass Broadband (for US, or for International; both cost money) and NBA Audio League Pass (which is free). Look for them on NBA.com.

Rule #7

Provocative statements in a signature, or as an avatar, or as the 'tagline' beneath a poster's username (where it says 'Member' or 'Administrator' by default, if it is not altered) are an unwanted distraction that will more than likely be removed on sight. There can be shades of gray to this, but in general this could be something political or religious that is likely going to provoke or upset people, or otherwise something that is mean-spirited at the expense of a poster, a group of people, or a population.

It may or may not go without saying, but this goes for threads and posts as well, particularly when it's not made on the off-topic board (Market Square).

We do make exceptions if we feel the content is both innocuous and unlikely to cause social problems on the forum (such as wishing someone a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter), and we also also make exceptions if such topics come up with regards to a sports figure (such as the Lance Stephenson situation bringing up discussions of domestic abuse and the law, or when Jason Collins came out as gay and how that lead to some discussion about gay rights).

However, once the discussion seems to be more/mostly about the political issues instead of the sports figure or his specific situation, the thread is usually closed.

Rule #8

We prefer self-restraint and/or modesty when making jokes or off topic comments in a sports discussion thread. They can be fun, but sometimes they derail or distract from a topic, and we don't want to see that happen. If we feel it is a problem, we will either delete or move those posts from the thread.

Rule #9

Generally speaking, we try to be a "PG-13" rated board, and we don't want to see sexual content or similarly suggestive content. Vulgarity is a more muddled issue, though again we prefer things to lean more towards "PG-13" than "R". If we feel things have gone too far, we will step in.

Rule #10

We like small signatures, not big signatures. The bigger the signature, the more likely it is an annoying or distracting signature.

Rule #11

Do not advertise anything without talking about it with the administrators first. This includes advertising with your signature, with your avatar, through private messaging, and/or by making a thread or post.

I see what your saying vnzla, but i "kinda" disagree. Danny is good & would be a decent 2nd, great 3rd option on a contending team but he is VERY VALUABLE to the P's. It's very obvious right now. I'm not saying DG is on LB or KD's level or anything close to that but more of how much his value means to this "team".

I think that if the Pacers front office if instead of signing Green and Young had signed Crawford or Mayo nobody would be missing Danny as much, the issue is not that the team misses Danny, the issue is that the Pacers have a bunch of scrubs to replace him.

In reality Paul George is doing a pretty good job in replacing Danny's numbers plus he is playing better D and rebounding at a higher rate than Danny, people love to think about the Danny of four years ago while forgetting that his productivity has been declining every year, last year was bad other than one month were he found a way to make his numbers look decent.

Right now the problem is not replacing Danny but replacing Paul George at small guard.

Edit: I'm not saying that signing either player could make the Pacers contenders either, their issues are deeper than missing an scorer.

Comment

Danny did a lot more than stats to make the offense run smoother. That's pretty evident at this point. Now maybe that's a failure in offensive design and not an endorsement of Danny, but it's true either way.

Comment

I don't disagree with anything you say Taterhead, though I do think Danny is very important to the how team is built. I absolutely agree that Hibbert, Hill, George and Stephenson are alright to stay and can work, but we need to find a good scoring guard somehow and we need a real athlete in the front court who has a mid range jumper.

I'm not saying he's not. He's the guy that can hit shots any team will give to you, and that certainly helps when you can't get a better one. But at the end of the day he's a streaky low percentage field goal shooter and depending on him to fix it is not smart, JMO.

I just think our approach is flawed and as long as we depend on him to do things that aren't his strengths, we'll never get where we want to be. You just can't be the San Antonio Spurs without Manu Ginobli and Tony Parker in the back court. That is what we are missing, is the guard play. Bigs rely on the guards, and the shooters do too. And we either don't have them, or Frank Vogels offense puts handcuffs on them.

The problem with Vogel offense I see is it allows the defense to dictate what we do and I think it's a huge problem. The team approach where you don't know who's going to hurt you, works both ways. We don't know who's going to help us either. So how do you gameplan when that's the case? A great basketball team flows like water, but they can also pound you like a hammer when they need to.

If they continue to flounder and if Danny misses the entire season, they should just trade David West at the trade deadline and try to get a young player and/or a draft pick preferably from a team that owns a potential lottery team's pick. Maybe Oklahoma City would send up Perry Jones or Jeremy Lamb and one of Houston's draft picks for him.

I don't think they'll continue this slide so all of that is really a moot point.

That is the perfect trade with the perfect partner. West would fill a huge need for them with his post scoring as their 3rd big, and Lamb fits our needs and could be huge for us in a few years. If we could get a descent pick to boot, it is the kind of trade that can vault us to legit contender status

Comment

Danny did a lot more than stats to make the offense run smoother. That's pretty evident at this point. Now maybe that's a failure in offensive design and not an endorsement of Danny, but it's true either way.

Explain? I remember that the offense looked the same last year with him on the team, the offense has been bad for a long long time with or without Danny.

@WhatTheFFacts: Studies show that sarcasm enhances the ability of the human mind to solve complex problems!

Comment

Explain? I remember that the offense looked the same last year with him on the team, the offense has been bad for a long long time with or without Danny.

You think the offense looked the same? What how is that even possible? We averaged 10 more PPG, we had better movement. Roy and West got the ball in better spots because Danny spread the D. George was able to just be a spot up jump shooter and get easy buckets in transition. The offense this year looks like a skeletal version of the offense last year at best. It is the same system at its core, but it is not operating in any way, shape or form close to the same efficiency. Last year we also did a great job on the offensive rebounds, one of the reason this may have been the case was because Danny requires his man to stay home, it's harder to help on the defensive boards. Watch how Lance and Paul are defended. Their guys cheat off them all the damn time. Saying Paul is "replacing Danny's stats", well that may be true, but he is not replacing Danny's impact. The team is a lot easier to defend offensively without Danny. It's not an excuse, it's just true, it's an indictment of the coaching staff, the front office, and the rest of the players just as much as it is a support to Danny being a pretty dang good player.

Danny got to the free throw line more than anyone else on the team, 5 free throw attempts a game that are basically gone. Just poof. Paul is not replacing those right now. Paul is getting to the free throw line a whopping 1.9 times a game! That is a huge, huge detriment to the offense.

Stop looking at just the fact that Paul is averaging 14 and 8 and saying that is replacing Danny because it's not. It's not even close. Even with Danny's bad shooting last year, Paul is doing worse. Paul is turning the ball over more than Danny did.

But the free throws are a pretty big deal. That is pretty much 4 PPG that has just gone up in smoke. That's not even accounting the differences in Paul and Danny's game. Danny could play offense without the basketball in a half court set, Paul cannot. Paul can barely play offense with the basketball in a half court set. And I'm not trying to tip on Paul I like his impact on the team, but syaing the offense looks the same as last year? No way, it's just not even close, it's not nearly as open, it's way more clogged up. It's like if you took our offense last year and stuck it in a freezer and then put it in a blender. Yeah it's the same bits and pieces in general, but they aren't nearly the same.

Comment

I think that if the Pacers front office if instead of signing Green and Young had signed Crawford or Mayo nobody would be missing Danny as much, the issue is not that the team misses Danny, the issue is that the Pacers have a bunch of scrubs to replace him.

In reality Paul George is doing a pretty good job in replacing Danny's numbers plus he is playing better D and rebounding at a higher rate than Danny, people love to think about the Danny of four years ago while forgetting that his productivity has been declining every year, last year was bad other than one month were he found a way to make his numbers look decent.

Right now the problem is not replacing Danny but replacing Paul George at small guard.

Edit: I'm not saying that signing either player could make the Pacers contenders either, their issues are deeper than missing an scorer.

Comment

You think the offense looked the same? What how is that even possible? We averaged 10 more PPG, we had better movement. Roy and West got the ball in better spots because Danny spread the D. George was able to just be a spot up jump shooter and get easy buckets in transition. The offense this year looks like a skeletal version of the offense last year at best. It is the same system at its core, but it is not operating in any way, shape or form close to the same efficiency. Last year we also did a great job on the offensive rebounds, one of the reason this may have been the case was because Danny requires his man to stay home, it's harder to help on the defensive boards. Watch how Lance and Paul are defended. Their guys cheat off them all the damn time. Saying Paul is "replacing Danny's stats", well that may be true, but he is not replacing Danny's impact. The team is a lot easier to defend offensively without Danny. It's not an excuse, it's just true, it's an indictment of the coaching staff, the front office, and the rest of the players just as much as it is a support to Danny being a pretty dang good player.

Danny got to the free throw line more than anyone else on the team, 5 free throw attempts a game that are basically gone. Just poof. Paul is not replacing those right now. Paul is getting to the free throw line a whopping 1.9 times a game! That is a huge, huge detriment to the offense.

Stop looking at just the fact that Paul is averaging 14 and 8 and saying that is replacing Danny because it's not. It's not even close. Even with Danny's bad shooting last year, Paul is doing worse. Paul is turning the ball over more than Danny did.

But the free throws are a pretty big deal. That is pretty much 4 PPG that has just gone up in smoke. That's not even accounting the differences in Paul and Danny's game. Danny could play offense without the basketball in a half court set, Paul cannot. Paul can barely play offense with the basketball in a half court set. And I'm not trying to tip on Paul I like his impact on the team, but syaing the offense basically looks the same as last year? I mean, maybe if you're applying a pretty liberal use of the word basically.

If I didn't know about who you are talking about I could think that you are talking about Lebron or something, Danny is(was) good but he is not that good, him jacking up shots and shooting under .400 from the field doesn't help as much as you think, there were many games last year were he was a huge negative to the team and was still jacking up shots.

Regarding the offense, yes the offense is the same cluster s***, maybe they scored more points it was the same bs.

I guess I'm going to try to leave you guys alone into thinking that if Danny was here everything would be OK, if that make you guys feel better inside so be it.

@WhatTheFFacts: Studies show that sarcasm enhances the ability of the human mind to solve complex problems!

Comment

If I didn't know about who you are talking about I could think that you are talking about Lebron or something, Danny is(was) good but he is not that good, him jacking up shots and shooting under .400 from the field doesn't help as much as you think, there were many games last year were he was a huge negative to the team and was still jacking up shots.

Regarding the offense, yes the offense is the same cluster s***, maybe they scored more points it was the same bs.

I guess I'm going to try to leave you guys alone into thinking that if Danny was here everything would be OK, if that make you guys feel better inside so be it.

Where have I ever said that everything would be OK? Where did I ever compare Danny to Lebron James? Do you ever just have a discussion without flying completely off into La La Land where you just overstate everything?

You made the statement that Paul is pretty much replacing Danny. I told you, that you are completely wrong. He doesn't move as well off the ball, he doesn't get to the free throw line as well, he turns the ball over, his defender does not treat him the same way Danny was treated. And you want to keep harping on Danny's percentages, Paul is shooting even worse than Danny did!

But all you can come back to me with is that I sound like I'm describing Lebron James, and that I'm just making myself feel good inside.

You always demand for everyone to back up their own position, but you never back yours. Pretty much ever. You just make outlandish comments.

So please tell me, how is Paul George replacing Danny Granger on offense? Not Lebron James, Danny Granger. Why are we even talking about Lebron James? Even in a world where Danny is as talented as Lebron they have completely different skill sets and styles. If anything the way we are trying to use Paul is like a way crappier version of Lebron.

Comment

If I didn't know about who you are talking about I could think that you are talking about Lebron or something, Danny is(was) good but he is not that good, him jacking up shots and shooting under .400 from the field doesn't help as much as you think, there were many games last year were he was a huge negative to the team and was still jacking up shots.

Regarding the offense, yes the offense is the same cluster s***, maybe they scored more points it was the same bs.

I guess I'm going to try to leave you guys alone into thinking that if Danny was here everything would be OK, if that make you guys feel better inside so be it.

So, seriously, if everything was the same last year and Danny wasn't that good and the bench wasn't that important, how did we finish where we did? Was it a league-wide conspiracy to get Pacer fans' hopes up so they could be cruelly crushed?

I'll agree our offense was the same, but it was more effective for a reason - that reason was because we actually had some scoring from the outside from time to time. The fact that we struggled when we had no outside scoring (during Danny's slump at the beginning of the season) was why we went after Barbosa (who was reviled after the playoffs as being someone we shouldn't bring back and yet suddenly is one of the main guys we should have kept).

People who say we're essentially the same team as last year need to be able to explain exactly what it was that let us finish where we did, because "luck" doesn't cut it.

BillS

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.
Or throw in a first-round pick and flip it for a max-level point guard...

Comment

I guess I'm going to try to leave you guys alone into thinking that if Danny was here everything would be OK, if that make you guys feel better inside so be it.

No one has argued that Danny will fix everything. Instead of purposfully distorting what people say, you should stick to what is actually said. You have a very bad habit of taking pretty much everything to the extreme.

Comment

No one has argued that Danny will fix everything. Instead of purposfully distorting what people say, you should stick to what is actually said. You have a very bad habit of taking pretty much everything to the extreme.

Yes and it's maddeningly frustrating after I put time into a post to explain my position, at his request, to get back crap that basically amounts to "Sounds like you're describing Lebron James, whatever makes you feel warm and fuzzy"